[fpc-pascal] fast text processing

[Marco van de Voort]

> > TStrings is meant for GUI purposes. It's design and implementation are
> > not optimized.
> 
> Then its our task to optimize it more (and more) so it could as fast as 
> Perl. What I meant here is using standard or default FPC's 
> classes/units. ;) I don't count any third parties class/units/library or 
> non standard attempt here since it'd require extra effort, especially 
> for newbies or newcomers (to FPC).

You can't separate performance from requirements. First define a problem,
then a solution. Not the other way around.

If you just want to show off, the easiest is simply making a FPC header to
pcre, it might be useful even.
 
> Of course, I know I can beat Perl using my own optimized TStrings 
> written in assembler by hand mixed by pascal syntax. But, that's not the 
> point. ;)

TString returns strings. A regex returns a boolean. This means that tstrings
must always copy strings.